Hiding Secret Data Using Reduced Differences within the Pixels of an Image

In the modern era, where vast amounts of data traverse public networks, the risk of data breaches is significant. Steganography, a method of concealing data within digital objects like images, is employed to secure sensitive information during transmission. However, utilizing digital images for this purpose often involves a trade-off between image quality and data quantity. To address this challenge, this study introduces a novel steganographic approach based on adjacent pixel differentiation within digital cover images. By customizing pixel differences, the method identifies optimal embedding locations to minimize distortion in the resulting stego image. Experimental results demonstrate an average peak signal-tonoise ratio (PSNR) of 65.97 decibels (dB), indicating high stego image quality. This metric serves as a precise measure of the proposed method's effectiveness, with higher PSNR values denoting superior stego image quality.